New Mockumentary Highlights Why An Open Internet With Real Competition Is Important

from the though-a-bit-over-the-top dept

A new "mockumentary" called The Internet Must Go launched today, in conjunction with the latest court hearing in the Verizon case against the FCC over the FCC's net neutrality rules. I got to see a "preview" showing of the film last week with the filmmaker. You can see the whole thing below, or at the link above, which includes a number of extras. The premise of the mockumentary is that the major ISPs have hired a clueless market researcher to figure out how to convince Americans that we don't need an open internet with basic non-discriminatory end-to-end connectivity. That researcher then goes out and talks to a bunch of net neutrality supporters who school him on the importance of an open internet.

There are a bunch of appearances in the film from folks you may know and recognize, like Larry Lessig, John Hodgman and Alexis Ohanian. As the filmmaker explained to us last week, the goal of the film is to try to make more people in the general public aware of the issue of "net neutrality," so it's more generally targeted at folks who don't spend a lot of time on these issues and who aren't generally aware of what's going on. On that front, perhaps the video will be successful, though I have to admit that, on the whole, the presentation is a bit disappointing. As I've said repeatedly, I'm a huge supporter of the concept of end-to-end neutrality and an open internet, but the movie badly caricaturizes the nature of the argument, and what's actually at stake, at times. The issues are a bit more complex than they're laid out, and it feels like that takes away from what could be a more informative film.

Frankly, where the film shines best is the part where it gets a bit away from the loaded term of net neutrality, and gets to the real problem: the lack of competition in broadband. For almost a decade, we've been pointing out that the so-called "fight" over net neutrality is really just a symptom of the lack of true competition in the broadband space. Get real competition at the service level and the issue of net neutrality fades away. What the ISPs claim is an attempt to get rid of "net neutrality" is really just an attempt to leverage a dominant position to get people to pay twice for the same bandwidth. So the part in the middle of the film where they start to look at the lack of competition, and how certain areas are completely underserved by the major ISPs because of this, the film gets more interesting.

Overall, the message that an open internet is worth protecting, and that we need a competitive and innovative broadband infrastructure, is absolutely true. I'm just not sure the film really presents that message in the best way possible. It's way over the top in how it paints the goals of the ISPs, and that takes away from what could have been a stronger message about how to actually tackle the lack of competition.

The ISP argument about their first amendment right is laughable. It is beyond ridiculous to claim that censorship is somehow tied to free speech. It's all about excuses for monetary extraction, their "rights" have not been violated in the least bit.

the cost of broadband and mobile phone use, including sim cards, is ridiculous! certainly in the UK a sim card in most cases is free. if it's paid for, it costs £1 ($2) and comes loaded ready to use. broadband is equally far cheaper than the USA and more competitive. this holding customers to ransom is bad practice, particularly when the service is absolute shite! the companies are more interested in sucking up to Congress to get more money for doing nothing and giving the worst deal for the most money to customers. the biggest offenders are the politicians who let the telcos get away with whatever they want (for a price, of course)

and dont forget, Hollywood and the entertainment industries have tried, are still trying and will continue to try to either screw the internet up completely, because it is possible to do things they dont like or to break it sufficiently badly so they can take it over and make it into an image of themselves. whichever of these two scenarios were to happen, the internet would be worthless!

ISPs aren't the major problem: they're already regulated.

But "the Internet" is already largely controlled by only a few mega-corporations. You can't discuss it without noticing how solid if not unassailable niches already exist. There's Ebay, Amazon, Paypal, Google, Facebook; then Apple, Yahoo and Microsoft depending how categorized. They don't really compete with each other -- more like cooperate in one cartel I'd say -- and are so far beyond others in their respective niches as to be effective monopolies. -- Yeah, yeah, I'm sure some will contradict that, but it's quite remarkable how much control those have and how FEW the major corporations are.

free speech

problem A: it IS about free speech, but its not about Verizons free speech - oops.
solution B: let them (Verizon) do, present, filter, whatever they want, but make them 100% liable for all of their users actions (copyright violations, kiddie porn, etc) since free speech does not cover breaking the law.

Broadband Plans

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